Spanish conquistador Pánfilo de Narváez marched into to swamps and forests Florida in 1527 with 300 men. Narváez and his men were in search of gold. Unfortunately, they are in store for a whole lot of misery and death. The Narváez Expedition is notable in that it marked the beginning of the amazing story of Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca – whose life we will cover in our next podcast.

Please note that the upcoming podcast on Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca is really an extension of the Narváez podcast. A link to that page will be added with the Cabeza de Vaca podcast has been published.

Resources

No better document for this podcast is the writings of Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, the expedition’s second-in-command. You can read it free online. Here is a good online version – or you can download a PDF or eReader version at archive.org.

I also want to give a nod to the folks at Wikipedia. The page that was set up detailing the Narváez Expedition is wonderful. Also, from there, you can access links to the various players in our tale.

This map shows the route taken by the Narváez Expedition – in addition to the later travels of Cabeza de Vaca.